C40 Competition: Rome

During my semester abroad, I was part of the C40 Competition, the site was along the Tiber River near the Porta Portese Gate. I worked within a group of 5 other designers, some from the University of Tennessee and some from the University of Arkansas. Samuel Townsend, Saxon Ewalt, Myles Blake, Jaxon Jordan and I did several visits to the site, which in total was about a mile long, and on those visits we noticed quite a few problems with the site.

Along the site there were many poorly constructed, maintained, or even fully abandoned buildings. Most of this site was simply used to get from one place to the other. In a city like Rome with a vibrant culture, there are frequently places to stop and get food, a drink, sit, relax and take in the area, but the site had nothing of the sort. Very few people were on this site, in total we counted 5 on our visits at the most. In a city as busy and walkable as Rome, this is an anomaly.
The site also lacked all connection to the river, often blocked both in view and in physical connection.

So, our primary objective was to restore the area, reconnect the site to the river, and give people reasons to come here other than just to pass through. My portion of the site is the bottom of it marked with the soccer ball on the site plan (also looks like a flower.) My goal was to create some public spaces to sit and eat lunch, meet a friend, or engage in community physical activity like basketball. With both a university and primary school nearby these felt essential. As well as creating interior spaces for shops, stores, or gyms to inhabit. Some of these spaces are covered by large pavilion structures which are shaped by the sight/site lines of the surrounding area, where the major entry axis are there are public gathering spaces. This underlying process is shown in the diagrams below.